Gandhinagar polls on Sunday, 162 candidates in fray for 44 seats

This will be the first major election after Bhupendra Patel took charge as chief minister.

This time the number of wards had increased from 26 to 35, with 13 additional villages also being included under the ambit of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.

The Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) is set to go to polls on Sunday. Around 2.30 lakh registered voters are expected to use their franchise to elect 44 councillors from 162 candidates across 11 wards of the GMC. Counting of the votes will take place on October 5.

If required, re-polling for a particular seat may be held on October 4.

This will be the first major election after Bhupendra Patel took charge as chief minister.

Elections to the GMC were due in April but were postponed owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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This time around, the elections will witness a three-pronged contest between the ruling BJP, the opposition Congress and Aam Admi Party. While BJP and Congress have fielded candidates on all the 44 seats, AAP has nominated 40 candidates.

As Gandhinagar is the state capital and a significant number of residents are government employees, the GMC elections assume a special significance.

In the previous 2016 elections, the BJP and Congress had both won 16 seats each out of the total 32 seats. However, within days, two Congress councillors defected to the BJP, paving the way for the saffron party to form the body in the GMC. Pravin Patel — of the defectors — was then elected mayor.

First published on: 01-10-2021 at 20:06 IST